Who are the outsiders in Do the Right Thing?

One of the key themes of Do the Right Thing is community, how it unites, and how it is broken apart. However, many characters in the film are shown to be outsiders to certain communities.  

The first and most interesting outsider in the film is Mookie. Mookie is a dual outsider; at his job, he is an outsider to the family-owned pizza business, especially by Pino, who is shown to become increasingly dismissive and blatantly racist towards Mookie as the day progresses. Because he is black and not a member of the family, he is put at the lowest totem pole in the business, with Sal telling him at one point, “Your job is to do what I say.” 

But Mookie is also an outsider from the african american  community of bed-stuy. Mookies position at Sal’s leads him to be an intermediary between the rest of the pizzeria and the general population. Because of this and wanting to preserve his job, he does not take a stand to put African Americans on the wall of fame and does not fight back harshly against Pino’s overt racism. He becomes an outsider to the African American community of Bed-Stuy. Add this to the fact that he is working on the day in question and, therefore, only ever passing by the other characters’ lives, further cements him as an outsider. However, at the end of the film, Mookie loses outsider status in the African American community when he turns his pack on Sal’s crew and takes part in the destruction of the store. 

The rest of Sal’s pizza crew are also outsiders in bed stuy. In a predominantly African American neighborhood, they stand as the only white characters we see in the film, except for the cops and one passerby. Their outsider status is noticed and compounded by Pino, who derogatorily says lt that  “it’s like a jungle” and “I want to be surrounded by my own kind”. While outsiders, this family is accepted by many in the community because of the restaurant. This is until the final brawl of the film, where, after seeing the true colors and rage of the family, the entire African American community turns on them and destroys the store. This outsider status contrasts with another outsider in the film, the Korean family who owns the convenience store.

While this family is still very much outside of the core community of bed-stuy, they are accepted because they are peaceful outsiders. Unlike the owners of Sal’s Pizza, they are never shown to be outwardly racist to African Americans (however, they are shown to be antisemitic). While not really liked in the community, they don’t cause any harm to anyone and are there for acceptance.

So, to answer the question, who are the outsiders in do the right thing? Realistically, almost everyone, almost every character, is an outsider to some community, and there are so many more i could have mentioned, such as how Lisa is an outsider to her family, how Smiley disability makes him an outsider to everyone, or even the larry bird clad jordan creaser who is “born in Brooklyn”.